The Art of Minorities: Cultural Representation in Museums of the Middle East and North Africa - Paperback

by Virginie Rey (Editor)

How are issues related to identity representation negotiated in Middle Eastern and North African museums? Can museums provide a suitable canvas for minorities to express their voice? Can narratives change and stereotypes be broken and, if so, what kind of identities are being deployed? Against the backdrop of the revolutionary upheavals that have shaken the region in recent years, the contributors to this volume interrogate a range of case studies from across the region - examining how museums engage inclusion, diversity and the politics of minority identities. They bring to the fore the region's diversity and sketches a 'museology of disaster' in which minoritised political subjects regain visibility.

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Explores the representation of minority cultures in museums of the Middle East and North Africa How are issues related to identity representation negotiated in Middle Eastern and North African museums? Can museums provide a suitable canvas for minorities to express their voice? Can narratives change and stereotypes be broken and, if so, what kind of identities are being deployed? Against the backdrop of the revolutionary upheavals that have shaken the region in recent years, the contributors to this volume interrogate a range of case studies from across the region - examining how museums engage inclusion, diversity and the politics of minority identities. They bring to the fore the region's diversity and sketch a 'museology of disaster' in which minoritised political subjects regain visibility. Key Features  Sets out a new way of understanding cultural representations in non-Western museums  Encourages a multidisciplinary/non-Western-centric reading of Middle Eastern museums  Includes 13 case studies based on fieldwork and archival research in the Middle East  Chapters cover Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, Turkey, Syria and the UAE Virginie Rey is a Research Associate at the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Mediating Museums: Exhibiting Material Culture in Tunisia (1881-2015) (2019) and co-editor of Making Modernity from the Mashrik to the Maghreb (2015).

Author Biography

Virginie Rey is Research Associate at the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She is co-editor (with Stephen Pascoe and Paul James) of Making Modernity in the Middle East: From the Mashriq to the Maghreb (Arena Publications, 2015) and is author of Mediating Museums: Tunisian Ethnographic Museums (1881-2016) (Brill, 2019).